A cutting assembly of an excavator, for example, is generally adapted to make a cut of a predetermined width. When it is desired to make a cut having a different width, the cutting elements are replaced with cutting elements of the desired width or a properly sized cutting assembly is used. Replacing cutting elements involves a great amount of time. The cutting elements are often heavy for one person to replace and are often awkwardly shaped and are time consuming to replace. It is impractical to replace cutting elements where many cuts of varying widths are desired and it is also impractical to use more than one cutting assembly. This suggests using cutting elements which produce a cut of maximum desired width. However, such cut may be wider than necessary at some points and thus more time consuming and expensive than a narrower cut.
The present invention is directed to overcoming one or more of the problems as set forth above.
According to the present invention, a cutting assembly has first and second cutting elements. The first cutting element has an outer end and extends generally laterally in one direction. The second cutting element extends generally laterally in an opposed direction and has an outer end which is laterally spaced a preselected distance from the outer end of the first cutting element. The cutting elements are movable between a first position at which the end portions are spaced a first preselected distance one from the other and a second position at which the end portions are spaced a different distance one from the other.